1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for tracking an object using a feature descriptor and an apparatus and method for removing a garbage feature, and more specifically, to an apparatus and method for generating a feature descriptor from an input image and removing an erroneously matching feature in order to track an object of interest corresponding to a target object that is a detection target.
2. Discussion of Related Art
With recent performance enhancement of a mobile device, attempts to detect and track an object of interest of an image alone in a mobile device are increasing. Existing algorithms for detecting an object of interest included in an image include Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) and Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF).
The SIFT algorithm is a method of dividing, in eight directions, a gradient-oriented histogram of each pixel in subareas around a feature extracted from an image, and representing the gradient-oriented histogram in a 128-dimensional vector. For this, since a plurality of differential images must be generated from an original image and a calculation such as vector calculation must be performed on all pixels of each differential image, high accuracy is provided in comparison with other feature-based algorithms but complexity of the calculation is high in tracking the object of interest.
Further, the SURF algorithm is intended to improve the speed of the SIFT algorithm. Processing speed is improved by using an integral image and a high-speed Hessian detector based on a Hessian detector approximated to extract the feature. However, this method has degraded performance of accuracy although the speed is higher than that of the SIFT algorithm.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,293 registered on Mar. 23, 2004, a method of identifying scale invariant features in an image and locating an object included in the image using the feature is disclosed. And U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0238460 published on Sep. 24, 2009, a method of searching for scale and rotation invariant features at a high speed is disclosed.